Singer Mary Lambert says her goal has always been to “impact as many people as possible,” though she believed it might be as a teacher, for which she got a college degree, or a politician.

Instead, while Lambert was working as a bartender in Seattle and moonlighting as a spoken-word artist and singer, a friend of hers who knew rap act Macklemore & Ryan Lewis told her they were interested in using Lambert to sing a chorus for their gay equality anthem “Same Love.”

The rest is history: Lambert wrote the song’s sweetly emotional “she keeps me warm” chorus inspired by her experiences with love and growing up homosexual in a religious Christian family. It helped propel “Same Love” to double platinum and more than 100 million YouTube views, and helped Macklemore & Lewis win four Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist.

Lambert expanded the chorus into her own song, “She Keeps Me Warm,” that hit the Top 20 on Billboard’s Adult chart, and into a full album, “Heart On My Sleeve” that hit the Top 30 and produced another song, “Secrets,” that topped the Dance Songs chart.

Now Lambert is on a tour that March 30 comes to Musikfest Cafe at ArtsQuest Center in Bethlehem.

In a recent telephone call from her home in Massachusetts, Lambert spoke about her sudden success, her music and the future.

Here’s an edited transcript of the call:

LEHIGH VALLEY MUSIC:Tell me about you’re album, “Heart on My Sleeve.”

“I had a couple of major goals when I signed to Capitol Records and the reason I decided to sign with a major label is because I believe my goal is to impact as many people as possible. And the reason I thought that that was evident, as well, was … especially from the Grammys – going from someone playing 15-people venues to performing at the Grammys, it was this giant leap and showed me sort of what was possible with what I wanted to do and the kind of music I wanted to write and artist I want to be … impacts a lot of people. That’s my goal.

“And so I thought, ‘I could do this independently and I could work my ass off for a long, long time and sort of crawl my way up there, or here’s this gift from a major label – this arm, this machine they have of radio departments and publicists. And I think to me, that was the sign of, ‘OK, this is what I want to accomplish.

“So it kind of modeled after that intention. So when I made the record, I had about five intentions; and that was I wanted to make an album that was authentically myself. And when you get into this industry, especially in the thick of it, you start hearing a lot of other peoples’ opinions, and if you don’t have a really strong sense of self, you can get swallowed up really quickly. Because, for me, someone who has a really strong sense of self and strong opinions, I was even questioning myself a lot of the process.

“But as it came down to it, I wanted to make a pop album; I wanted to make an album I could hear on the radio that would be commercially viable as well as intentional and important.”

So the process itself: Did you write the songs or did you go into the studio with Eric Ross? Or how did that work?

“This was a completely new process for me. I definitely went a different way than I was expecting. I’d never co-written in my entire life and all of my previous work was all done as me, as a songwriter. And I have this illusion that, in order to create my best work I needed to be crying in the middle of a crisis and drunk and …

Doesn’t hurt.

“And here I was in L.A., put me in a room with certain people and … ‘OK, make something.’ Feels very contrived, and I didn’t feel super great about it. But as it unfolded, I realized the people that I was writing with were very similar to me and had almost the same opinion of ‘This is so stupid that we’re creating music this way; it’s so contrived, we’re in a recording studio.’ So I guess with that kind of idea, that we all wanted to create something organic and thought the whole process was silly, we ended up making something really beautiful [Laughs] along the way.

“And so I made the record in the studio. I had done about four tours this past year, and I would fly to L.A. every couple of days for two days here, a day here, to track something, to write something. It was an arduous process for sure, but one that taught me that I can create under many different circumstances.”

And obvious success story is the song “Secrets.” It hit No. 1 on the dance chart. What was your response to that?

“That was crazy. I never thought that I would have a No. 1 dance hit [Laughs]. I was like, ‘Cool, I’ll take a dance hit. That’s so cool.’ Um, I don’t really go to clubs or anything, so I don’t know how that fits in that world. But how cool to have a No. 1.”

Yeah, exactly.

“I’m really stoked about it.”

And tell me the story of that song. That song is getting a lot of attention. Same process: What were you looking to say and how did it come together?

“Hmm. ‘Secrets’ came about … that was one of the funnest nights of my entire music life. I was laughing so hard when we were making that song.

“So this is the first album where I didn’t write the music-music. So there’s a couple songs, and I think you can hear them, where I’m playing piano and I’ve written the piano part. But most of the music was written by my producers. So Eric starts playing this single piano line melody and it was reminding me of Regina Spektor’s ‘Dance Anthem of the ‘80s’ I think that song’s called? Where’s she’s just playing this one, plink-y piano melody and then it’s really catchy – it’s a super-fun song.

“And Benny Cassette, who did additional production on it, he some percussion on it, and then I just started vocalizing funny things – back and forth with my friend Mo – MoZella – and came up with this melody. It was really fun and I was just, I was dying of laughter and then I stopped. I was like, ‘You guys! What if I start this song with telling everyone that I’m bi-polar? And then everyone kind of gave me this cockeyed look, like, ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ I was like, ‘Hell, yes I do!’ And I kind of woke up the next morning with this truth hangover.”

[Laughs]

“[Laughs] And I was like, ‘Should I have done that? And then the days that we were coming out with it, there was no question about what I wanted to say in that song.”

You know, that actually was going to be my next question: Is there a point where you can say too much? Where you can offer up too much about yourself?

“Um, I think obviously that’s arbitrary for anybody; to each his own. I think for me, for me as an artist there are no boundaries. As long as I’m creating in a way that isn’t trying to re-traumatize any wounds that I do have. If I am writing and doing it in a interested and kind way that’s ultra-conscious about my listener. I think that’s the beauty of being a singer-songwriter. You get a two-fold process of being insular in that introspective, creative space in making something that is truly for you and what you want to say. But if you’re a singer-songwriter or a performer, you have the … you don’t have, I guess, the foresight to see what it ends up as, so you have to be more cautious, I guess. That’s maybe how I operate.

“So I will definitely go to some serious depths in my writing, but I don’t necessarily share all of that. Some of that is for me, but in general , no – I don’t think I have a filter. [Laughs].”

[Laughs] Hey, I want to talk with you about “Same Love” and “She Keeps Me Warm.” Am I correct that the process for that was Macklemore and Lewis asked you to ask the hook first – that was the first part of that song that you wrote?

“Oh, no – they had … ‘Same Love’ had been a process, I think, that they had been writing for months and months and months. And they’d been looking for someone to sing the hook for months and months and months [Laughs]. And they had literally called in all their favors; they asked everybody to sing on the song and nobody wanted to do it. And I very much a last resort. I was a bartender; like, I was known kind of in the spoken-word community and so we had friends in the spoken word and rap communities and I was exploring being a Christian lesbian in my writing a lot and I had just received my degree from Cornish in music composition.

“And I had been doing shows for a really long time, but I was not prevalent on the music scene in Seattle at all. So I had a friend named Hollis – who sings on [Macklemore and Lewis’s song] “White Walls," actually. She and I had done poetry together; I think she kept telling Ryan about “this girl – she’s a Christian lesbian; she will do a great job.” [Laughs] And they’re like, ‘Fine, OK, OK, we’ll hear her.’ So I got a call at like 2 p.m. and Hollis is, like, ‘Do you want to do a song with Macklemore?’ I was, like, ‘Yes, I will make this happen, no matter whatever I need to do.’

“So Ryan sent me the track at, like 3 o’clock on, like, a Tuesday, and I was like freaking out, ‘cause I was, like, ‘This is the call that people talk about that frickin’ phone call they get. This my call, and I’ve got to deliver. My entire life has been leading up to this moment – I have to create the best piece of art that I can.’

“So I took a shot of tequila [laughs], I got to work and I had about two hours with the song, and the song was already completed; they were just missing the chorus. There was no vocalizing on it; it was just the rap and instrumental track. So I sent it in.”

But your contribution – I mean that part was the first part of your song you wrote later, yes?

“Yes, oh, for ‘She Keeps Me Warm’? Yes.”

And so then, what made you make it into a full song of your own?

“I didn’t actually want to. I thought, ‘This is greedy, and ‘Same Love’ just needs to live on its own. I create other stuff that can touch on the subject. I didn’t want to do it. I was performing and doing a lot of shows at the same time as touring with Macklemore and the song was blowing up. So I was gaining a lot of fans through my work on ‘Same Love,’ and people were coming to these shows and they weren’t expecting poetry, they weren’t expecting this loud person crying, basically, at the piano, ‘cause it’s kind of what I do.

“So I did a radio interview with a college radio station, and when they filmed it, it ended up getting a million views, and people started to pirate it and wanted it for their weddings and they were like, ‘I love ‘Same Love; I want the song to take me down the aisle.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t want to rob people of their weddings! [Laughs]. So I recorded it, and then I decided, ‘OK, I really made a conscious decision at that point that I was going to pursue this as a follow single for me.”

I have ask you about [your album’s cover of the Rick Springfield song] ‘Jessie’s Girl.’ I grew up at a time when Rick Springfield was actually really popular. And I liked that song. But how did you take that song and decide to make it yours the way you did?

“I got approached by [The TV show] ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ actually [laughs]. How this one came up was very strange. I got approached by ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ to take an ‘80s cover and record it for one of their episodes. And I think a lot of artists got the call, so I was like, ‘I don’t want to make this the best.’ So I immediately jumped to ‘Jessie’s Girl’ – it’s one of my favorite songs. It’s a song that I remember hearing when I was a kid and for some reason, I just always thought – I knew more girls named Jessie that I knew guys – and so it’s always been a lesbian song to me, even though I know it’s not [laughs]. But it just seemed really applicable to me as I was growing up and coming out.

“And so it felt really easy for me to perform and sing. And I rearranged it and played a new piano part. I sent the track to my friend Andrew, and he put strings on it. We did it in about two days ‘cause we were on a deadline. And they didn’t end up taking it, and I thought, ‘What a shame; it’s such a beautiful arrangement and I love performing it; I think people would like it. So I decided to put it on the record.”

“Yeah! I don’t know how that got out [laughs]. Yes, I do. [laughs]. I don’t know if they’re promoting it yet or not, but I think I probably accidentally talked about it. That’s what happened [laughs].”

Well, how did that happen? And what is it? Are you playing a character?

“Oh, I just have a guest appearance. They’re a mutual love for ‘Faking It’ in our household, and they … I love the show; it’s a guilty pleasure. And they use ‘Secrets’ for their promo spots on MTV, and so that’s how I got to know the show. And then I don’t like to support anything unless I really, directly … I don’t like my likeness to appear with anything or my songs to appear with anything unless I directly support it. So I needed to get behind the series, and it was very easy to.”

What was it like for you speaking at the U.N.? [In December, Lambert took part in a United Nations panel for promotion of diversity within families.]

“Oh, unreal. To me it was as big as the Grammys. It was that important to me. I wanted to go into politics for a long time and my goal has always been that I know that I’m supposed to impact the world – that’s my goal – and encourage empathy and vulnerability. And I thought, ‘Well, may I could be … I’ll go into the Legislature and I’ll change the world that way. And I didn’t end up doing that, I ended up going to school to be a teacher. So I was going to school to be a teacher and I got the call to do ‘Same Love.’

“So my path has taken me in a very distinct turn – hopefully effecting change through pop culture and through pop music. So going to the U.N. felt like a full circle, I think, for me – being able to talk with powerful politicians and talk about my journey and also hope to encourage people who are on the fence, I guess.”